All white on the night

Now that’s what I call winter. None of that namby-pamby big southern Jessie drizzle and fog stuff for weeks on end but a good couple of days of blizzards wafted gently in by an Arctic blast of Siberian wind.
It transported me back a few decades, to our humble wooden hovel atop the Pennines, where we would be snowed in from August Bank Holiday until early June, fearing to venture out in case we were attacked and eaten by marauding packs of starving Yorkshiremen who had roamed over the moors from Halifax in search of sustenance.
Why do you think there are no trees and very little wildlife up there?
We would shiver in a dark corner as dad tried to light a fire by rubbing Granny Arkwright’s wooden legs together (she lost her real legs in the Great Tripe Mine Collapse of 1908 while trying to rescue a large slice of thick seam which, sadly, was lost).
Then we would huddle round the light and warmth created by burning the council rent man, who had accidentally died while arguing with dad, who at the time was putting his point across in true Lancashire philosopher style by using his clogs.
Ah, happy days.
So to the present and the daily grind of traipsing back and forth to Bath through an icy, snowy and unpredictable Chew Valley,
But was a few inches of white stuff going to stop a weather-hardened Lanky from getting through?
Yep.
So as I write this from a cosy, centrally-heated spare bedroom office back home, having given up the unequal struggle against Mother Nature, I am indebted to BBC West Ceefax for this gem that appeared midst Friday morning’s carnage. The last paragraph of a report of trouble in Wiltshire stated:
“Problems have been compounded by low salt levels, which have meant that only main toads were being gritted.”
Picture the scene, all the local toads queuing up to be gritted by the council’s Amphibian Salination Application Executive, salt cellar in hand, who suddenly spots a frog trying to sneak through.
“Oi, you, frog thing. What d’you think you’re doing? Toads only, mate. More than my job’s worth to grit you. ’Oppit.”

* We would like to make it clear that no amphibians were harmed in the creation of this missive.
And apologies to Mike Harding for blatantly pinching one of his jokes, circa. 1974, but we do keep being told to recycle.